“That’s right. But say, Mr. Jones, how do you know about the light?”
“What else but a light could you have seen, on a pitch-black night?” counter-questioned Average Jones with a smile. “And it must have been something unusual, or you wouldn’t have dropped everything to go to it.”
“That’s what!” corroborated the boy. “A kind of flame shot up from the ground. Then it spread a little. Then it went out. And there were people running around it.”
“Ah! Some one must have got careless with the oil,” observed Average Jones.
“That fool Tuxall!” broke in Farley with an oath. “It was him gummed the whole game.”
“Mr. Tuxall, I regret to say,” remarked Average Jones, “has left for parts unknown, so the Harwick authorities inform me, probably foreseeing a charge of arson.”
“Arson?” repeated the Reverend Mr. Prentice in astonishment.
“Of course. Only oil and matches could have made a barn flare up, after a three-days’ rain, as his did. Now, Bailey, to continue. You ran across the fields to the Tuxall place and went around—let me see; the wind had shifted to the northeast—yes; to the northeast of the barn and quite a distance away. There you saw a man at work in his shirt.”
“Well-I’ll-be-jiggered!” said the boy in measured tones. “Where were you hiding, Mr. Jones?”
“Not behind the tree there, anyway,” returned the Ad-Visor with a chuckle. “There is a tree there, I suppose?”